Dark Souls: worldwide shipments pass 1.5 million mark

Americans and Europeans show particularly masochistic bent

Worldwide shipments of From Software and Namco Bandai's Dark Souls have reached 1.5 million, the co-publishers announced this week. Less than a month after the game's worldwide release, Western publisher Namco Bandai says it's shipped 620,000 copies in North America and 470,000 in Europe. These figures join 40,000 copies shipped in Asian territories and 370,000 in Japan, where From Software self-published the title.

As the above clip hints, Dark Souls' reputation as the RPG fan's teeth-gritting trial of choice preceded it: it's not many games that we'd highly recommend even while cautioning challenge-averse players to think twice, but then, Dark Souls isn't any game. The game's PS3-exclusive predecessor, Demon's Souls, didn't manage half those numbers in its debut month, a sign that the semi-sequel's expansion to multi-platform and appeal to the self-proclaimed “hardcore” has paid off. Let's hope more games follow From Software's lead in crafting games this unapologetically demanding – and rewarding.